In recent years, information of various shops and sightseeing spots are available not just from conventional information media such as television and magazines, but also from information media such as the Internet and like media. However, even if a shop or the like of interest that one would like to go whenever there is an opportunity were found in such information media, it is relatively rare that a person would actually visit that place at a later date.
However, if the person who thought of going to that place whenever there was the opportunity knew that that place is close to where that person currently is, it can be assumed that that person would more likely go to that place.
There conventionally has been a notification device which, when a user approaches a spot registered in advance, notifies the user of that situation. For instance, Patent Literature 1 described below discloses a portable information terminal which notifies a user when a current location of the portable information terminal and a spot registered in advance by the user approaches close within a predetermined distance. Patent Literatures 2 through 5 disclose techniques similar to this.
With use of such a technique, the user can register in advance a spot that the user wishes to go to, to allow knowing that they are close to that spot whenever the user is close to that spot. This makes it easier to drop in at the spot.
Particularly, it is easily possible these years to obtain positional information with a portable terminal, for example by the commercial availability of mobile phones which install a GPS (Global Positioning System) function. Moreover, positional information of stores is becoming more and more available in data format on the Internet and the like.
By registering a plurality of positional information of spots that the user wishes to go to into the portable terminal, the user can drop in at those spots that are close to where the advantageous for the user in that they can readily go to a spot they wanted to go to, and is also advantageous for the store and the like in that many people can drop in at their store or the like.